Chaser's Journal

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Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Less than a week into National Novel Writing Month, I decided to shelve my novel.

Why?

Simply put, I have too many things going on in terms of my writing that adding another project isn't going to help me in the slightest. So I'm going to go back to focusing on editing the novels I've got that are still in the words, push myself to actually get something either published or polished enough to start investigating the traditional publishing path next year.

Wednesday, November 8, 2017

I have a love-hate relationship with caffeine. To the level that it feels like I should be talking about a different drug. If I'm drinking coffee, on caffeine, it helps me focus (at least a little). And it's become a relaxing habit, a part of the ritual that's hard to recapture in a way that feels right.

And it's really hard to keep on the ride. I can slip and fall off so easily. If I go a day without drinking a cup of coffee, sometime the next day I'll be hit by a migraine so hard that I feel like throwing up. I have thrown up at least once. That was my Monday. I thought because I'd felt okay for most of the day, I was okay, inside the window.

Saturday, November 4, 2017

There are a couple of reasons for that. Thursday and Friday I didn't write. Thursday I just let life catch hold of me in the wrong way, had to hit the grocery store and just ended up too tired to write by the time I got home.

Friday? I have better reasons for not getting time to write Friday. Not ones that are going to let me finish NaNo. It was a date night, one that I'd planned. There's an old industrial building a few blocks away from me that has a truly staggering number of artist's studios inside, and on the first Friday of every month, they have an open house. It made for a really awesome evening, wandering from studio to studio and talking to the various artists.

Wednesday, November 1, 2017

So it's the start of November, and once again National Novel Writing Month is upon us.

I've attempted the sprint that is asked for in this before. And I'm doing so again. This time I'm playing with an idea that's been percolating in my head for a while.

"What if Aladdin of the Lamp didn't use magic to short-cut?"

Because, no matter where you look, the original myth or the mouse's, he lies and deceives to get what he wants. That's more than a little skeevy if you think about it. That doesn't seem the behavior of a "Diamond in the Rough." That's a con-man. Which there are plenty of interesting stories about con-men, though the best ones are usually where they end up being too invested in the person they're trying to be that they change. But Aladdin can't exactly do that. His lie is too outside of how and what he can be.

What if he asks for a chance? Not "Make me royal." but "Let me prove I'm worthy." So the idea's been filed in my head under the working title of Proving Worth. And I'm going to try and sprint through it this November. In that, I'll be going back to what I did when I first started blogging: daily words counts.

And if people are watching, I might end up posting the first draft as I go. But no promises.

And the first day's result? 1,286 words. It's not quite the 1.7k I'll need daily to make it across the finish line, but I managed to slip into the story without fighting the Blank Page for too long.

Monday, October 23, 2017

Saturday night, I went to go see the opening night of the play "The Agitators." If you live in Rochester, please come see this play. If you don't live in Rochester, either consider making the trip or look into getting a local theatre company put on a production of the play.

It was an amazing production about the lives of Fredrick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony, who both have roots here in Rochester. During the play, a thought struck me. Actually, it struck me during the prologue discussion, when the presenter talked about how native Rochesterians were probably aware of the fact that these two civil rights icons were friends. Rochester has a history and depth to it that the place I grew up doesn't have.